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Corn Bread Griddle-Cakes

A griddle cake made from soaked corn bread crumbs, sour milk, egg, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Bread Griddle-Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the corn bread-crumbs in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, mash the crumbs finely and add the sour milk and beaten egg; mix well.

  3. Stir in enough flour to bind the mixture together.

  4. Add the dissolved baking soda and beat the mixture hard.

Cook

  1. Bake immediately on a hot griddle, ensuring it does not scorch.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn bread-crumbs
Provide the bulk and corn flavor, softened overnight so they break down into the batter.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds structure to the cakes as they set on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas, lightening the batter.
Flour
Adds enough body to bind the batter into a mixture that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Bake immediately on a hot griddle. Once the baking soda is dissolved and mixed in, its gas-producing reaction starts right away and slows over time, so the batter should go on the griddle without delay. A hot surface sets the outside quickly while the inside stays moist; too low or too high heat can leave the cakes raw or scorched.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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